1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to an image processing method for generating partial images by cutting out images that include desired regions of interest from original images. The present invention is also related to image processing apparatus for executing the image processing method. Further, the present invention is related to a computer readable medium having a program stored therein that causes a computer to execute the image processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Works in which portions of photographs are cut out and pasted onto sheets along with text and illustrations are known. Recently, similar processing of digital images are being performed using personal computers.
Specifically, object portions, which are to be components of works to be created, are cutout as partial images from digital images. The partial images are generated by human visual recognition of object regions which are desired to be utilized as components of the works. However, selecting appropriate regions from a great number of images an extracting optimal object regions is an extremely time consuming process.
Therefore, a method has been proposed in which a detecting technique corresponding to objects specified to be cut out (for example, face detecting techniques in the case that the specified objects are human faces) are employed to automatically detect the specified objects (faces, for example) from images, the detected objects are cut out as independent images, and the cut out independent images are displayed on the monitor of a digital camera or the like (refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2005-318515, for example).
However, in the case that a detector corresponding to the specified object is employed, only the objects which are the targets of detection of the detector can be extracted, even if there are other portions of the image that draw attention other than the specified objects. That is, the other portions of the image that are of interest cannot be extracted.